


Bent, Broken, Whole

by sasha_b



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 15:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1904580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lancelot contemplates other options.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bent, Broken, Whole

**Author's Note:**

> I miss them sometimes and it is so good to be back in this world for a while, even if I am horrid to my lovely curly haired knight. thank you for listening to my ramblings, and I promise I won't be so mean next time! I really feel that Lancelot would think this way sometimes; they lived a hard life and I can imagine he would be prone to depression etc. What do you all think?

 

  
Scrubbing his hand over his face and hair was something Lancelot was too familiar with.

And yet because he was familiar with it, he did it. Again, and then a third time before he dropped his heavy hand with a short breath to the stone wall that surrounded the battlements he stood upon.

Winter was close; too close for his comfort, as it meant few supplies and even fewer foodstuffs to care for and feed the large garrison he’d been a part of for ten years. Days came and went, time passed and slowed, telescoped and sped forward, and still he spent his life doing the same things over and over and he wondered briefly if one day he’d just stop waking and stay abed forever.

The Romans could do without him, and even though his fellow knights might be angry at the load of work he’d leave them, they would make do eventually. Arthur, though –

There was always Arthur. Always one to consider, and Lancelot cursed, his tongue curling around the words lovingly, his language having grown somewhat rusty as he didn’t use it very often anymore. The ugly British that was spoken around their fort was omnipresent, and the Latin he’d been forced to learn – gods forbid the Romans be able to hide anything from him – was his second language now.

He toyed with the hilt of the short dagger he wore at his waist. His prize beauties were back in his quarters; he didn’t like to carry them all the time as they were for serious matters and a show of strength around the garrison wasn’t really needed anymore. Or to admit the truth – anyone that meant any harm to Lancelot would die screaming for his mother and pissing his trousers before he could even think about drawing his own blade. Lancelot didn’t need a show of force. He _was_ a show of force.

And he was so tired of it.

Tired of the same, tired of the monotony, tired of doing what was expected and what Arthur wanted of him.

His mouth tight, his scowl deepened as black roiled through his brain and anger tried to eat its way through his gut. It was close to succeeding lately, and his back twinged, the heavy jerkin and coiled length of mail he wore pressing and snug.

His turn on watch was almost over, and then he’d do – what? The tavern, drinking till he couldn’t stand, taking to his rooms some nameless girl that he’d fuck and then kick out, hungover in the morning when he went to ride patrol with Gawain? Throwing darts with Tristan, beating a few legionaries at dice, eating on his own in a corner, eying everyone with distrust and distaste?

Crawling to Arthur’s room, sick with wine, letting the man fuck him until he passed out, physical bliss the only thing that crowded his mind enough that he forgot the empty, sucking _nothing_ that passed for emotions these days?

He put a long fingered hand over his mouth, his gorge threatening to rise and choke him, rot and horror and loneliness so overwhelming he could barely remember anything else filling his life and his body and brain and he pinched at his lips, ashamed and unhappy.

This was his life. He had no choice.

Yet neither did the others. Look at Bors, his family, his wife and children, his idiotic ramblings about taking over this place when the Romans left. Look at Gawain and Galahad, friends till the end, brothers without anyone else that had found a kinship in each other. Look at Tristan, his hawk and his silence quiet but not destroyed. Look at Dagonet –

“The sun’s gone down.”

Lancelot swiped fingers over his eyes; they burned and itched and he bit his lip as he turned to Galahad. “Astute as ever, pup,” he bit off, and turned away from the battlement, his hand resting on the hilt of the dagger at his waist, the links of his mail chiming in the wind and with his movement. He snagged a curl at the base of his earlobe as he rubbed at his hair for an uncountable repeated time. The sun was down, and his watch was over. He passed the flask he’d carried under his armor to Galahad, the skin warm from having lain pressed to Lancelot’s chest for several hours.

“You might need this,” he called as he jogged lightly down the steps, Galahad’s words of thanks ripped from the younger man’s mouth as the night wind picked up with the passing of the sun.

Lancelot’s rooms were cold; he didn’t have a servant to tend to his things like Arthur did. None of the Sarmatians had that luxury. He lit three lamps and stirred the banked coals to life, shivering, white skin goose pimpled as he removed his jerkin and mail and black shirt. He stood still in his leathers, barefoot, his thin sleeveless undertunic old and wrinkled and smelling of must and horse and sweat and Lancelot crossed to the small square window at the edge of his room, opening the glass and breathing in the outside air. He rubbed his arms and leaned on the brick, his hair crazed and standing up in dark chocolate whorls around his lean face, black under his eyes and in them.

How long had it been since he’d smiled? And how long had it been since he cared?

It was easy to express hatred, anger, disgust, fear, battle-lust, even passion. He was certain Arthur could name any of those feelings should they cross Lancelot’s face – passion was one the other man should know well. But happiness, joy, laughter? Those were so foreign he didn’t know if he could be re-taught them should he ask.

Night was chilly and dank and he sighed, ashamed and tired and he looked out the window, judging the drop – would it break his neck should he fall? Would that be worse than a death on a battlefield? More ignoble?

Would he go to the place of his ancestors and be able to rest at last, roaming the oceans of grass – no boundaries – forever?

Arthur burst into his rooms without knocking, a living breathing entity of _life_ that made the small quarters feel even smaller, the heat of the brazier not necessary with the commander around.

Lancelot found the tightness of his shoulders increased – but only for a moment, as Arthur’s long limbs and broad frame enveloped him without any words from the other man.

Lancelot found his lips were smiling without his active directive or thought.

He closed his eyes and sucked in the aroma of leather and horse and outdoors and torch smoke and incense and love and comfort and he felt the answering smile against his neck, the thing imprinted and memorized immediately. Arthur’s hands found his that sat on the windowsill and wound them together with his own, square and strong mixed with slender and sinewy.

“Galahad relieved you?”

“He did,” Lancelot answered quietly, the sudden calm that had come with Arthur’s arrival making room for well known worry and he bit his lip, his smile fading as the stars rose in the sky. A fat shiny moon, bright and scary and too large watched him, and he turned from the window, closing it, letting go of Arthur’s hands, pulling free from the other man to sit on his small bed, his bootless right foot resting under his left knee.

“Did you eat?”

“Later,” Lancelot said, for his appetite had been small and gone for many weeks. Pain and anxiety and anger had taken its place – large enough sustenance for his thin body. “What are you doing here?”

That type of question usually garnered one of two reactions: hurt and indecisiveness or anger and blustery speeches.

Arthur narrowed his emerald gaze at Lancelot, who waited for the inevitable –

Stubby calloused fingers found his belly and Arthur’s mouth took his and Lancelot _meep_ ed in shock and surprise and Arthur forced him to his back as they struggled and bucked and Lancelot fought back but the other man was heavier, more resilient. Lancelot had been _so_ tired, so angry, so full of _done_ he couldn’t find the strength to force Arthur off –

And he let Arthur kiss him again finally, the other man’s hands roaming and tickling his overly sensitive skin and he found his clothing was ripped from him easily, indignation and the blank he’d lived under for so long trickling down, down, slowly from his flesh until all he felt was Arthur, all he smelled and breathed was Arthur, and he took the other man inside of him and when he came a great laugh burst from his mouth, loud enough to wake the whole garrison. Arthur, who would normally turn bright crimson at any noise of passion or intensity from Lancelot, rose up and kissed Lancelot’s mouth and swallowed Lancelot’s sound of joy, Lancelot’s hands flying to grasp Arthur’s head, fingers tangling in his hair, tugging and pulling and at last they collapsed in a heap together, sweat and musk filling the small room.

Lancelot weakly turned his head and pressed lips to the tips of Arthur’s fingers that lay near his head, the appendages crooked and bent in their rest, broken fleshy flowers that decorated Lancelot’s pillows with their serene, individual beauty.

He’d never seen anything so simple and so wanted in his life.

His smile bloomed, an answering flower, white and tiny, but there.

Arthur touched his cheek, tracing the indent of the smile, one finger and then two. “I have missed that.”

“I had lost it,” Lancelot answered in a whisper, hesitant, afraid of his life and melancholy and what the daybreak would bring. “I may lose it again yet.”

The lines between Arthur’s brows were thick and grooved and he petted Lancelot’s face gently, hand trembling in the aftermath of their coupling. Lancelot waited for Arthur to say something, to reassure him, to deny his sadness, but the other man merely looked at him and touched his skin and finally Lancelot closed his glittering brown-black eyes, too afraid to watch anymore, the anger and despair too easy to rise and he let Arthur’s body be his cradle as he tried to remember the stretch of the smile, how it felt, what it was like to be shown love when he had forgotten its very existence.

He was strong alone, but he was stronger with Arthur, and gods forgive him, but he wanted to weep at the realization and he knew then for sure he would not be able to leap out his window or fall under his horse or challenge a legionary to a death match because then he’d die in a way that did not befit him.

He’d die with that smile Arthur had dragged out of him stretched over his face, and he’d do it gladly, for Arthur had reminded Lancelot that sometimes it was worse to live empty and broken than to die for a reason. Giving up was not a death he would be satisfied with.

He opened his eyes to find Arthur watching him, the room not so hot anymore, the bed comfortable if small, the sounds of nighttime at the garrison familiar and Lancelot threaded his fingers through Arthur’s hair, familiar gesture and not hated this time –

He smiled, slowly and with effort at first and Arthur laughed and it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

The seeds of worry and sadness and _done_ lay dormant, and Lancelot prayed to every god there ever was they would not see the sun again, despite the fact he knew better.

He knew better, and still he smiled.


End file.
